In loving memory

August 2, 1945 - October 12, 2015



CVS Pharmacy where our motto is “If we kill enough of our customers then, perhaps, we won’t have to work so hard”

Considering the patient-pharmacist relationship as a covenant means that a pharmacist has moral obligations in response to the gift of trust received from society. In return for this gift, a pharmacist promises to help individuals achieve optimum benefit from their medications, to be committed to their welfare, and to maintain their trust.

—American Pharmacists Association, Code of Ethics, Article 1

Now that is one huge truckload of bat guano. At least it is when applied to CVS pharmacists. Specifically it’s a huge truckload of bat guano when it comes to the pharmacist operating (hopefully, not for long) at the CVS Pharmacy located on the southeast corner of Forest and Abrams in Dallas.

I usually don’t like to write about personal experience on this blog unless they serve in some way to illuminate something terribly wrong in our society that the rest of the population of that society needs to be made aware of for their own well-being. This is such an instance.

Tonight, a few moments after 7 p.m., I was returning home from giving the dog a run with her best buds at Moss Park. I stopped at the neighborhood CVS (which I now know stands for Cancelling Vital Serivces) to get a prescription for Pravastatin. The pharmacist on duty categorically refused to take my refill information. When I asked if the pharmacy department was closed, I was told it was open until 10 p.m. When I asked why they would not take my information, the quack in charge (at least the only one back there wearing the traditional white jacket) said they were "overloaded." When I then tried to tell them I wasn’t in need of an immediate refill, that I could come back and retrieve the refill 24 hours later, the guy in the white jacket simply turned his back and walked away.

Does that sound like someone committed to society’s welfare? No, it sounds like someone committed only to his lazy butt.

Now for those not familiar with Pravastatin, it, among other things, "helps prevent heart attack and stroke in people who have heart disease." I guess that means the quack pharmacists at CVS must adhere to the philosophy that "preventing heart attacks, hmmm, that doesn’t seem too important to me. I mean everyone deserves a couple of heart attacks in his or her lifetime."

Tonight, of course, will be the last time I ever set foot inside a CVS Pharmacy. You readers out there are free to do as you wish, depending on how much you value your own health and well-being. There’s a Walgreens about a mile further down the road that’s going to be seeing a lot more of me.

And, yes, I have filed official complaints about this pharmacist’s actions to CVS corporate, the Better Business Bureau, the Texas Attorney General’s Office and the aforementioned American Pharmacists Association. If I hear anything from these folks, I’ll be sure to let you know. Watch this space.

In the meantime, be warned.

Still the greatest inaugural address

I was 19 years old — a freshman at the University of Texas at Austin. The summer before, my father, a vice president at Brown & Root, had been a delegate from Texas to the 1960 Democratic National Convention. Although he was a major supporter of Adlai Stevenson, he was pledged to Sen. Lyndon Johnson of Texas because, back then, Texas had something called the Unit Rule. The Unit Rule stated that the candidate supported by the majority of the delegation would be the candidate supported by the entire delegation.

There were five serious candidates vying for the Democration nomination for president — Stevenson, Johnson, Washington Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, Missouri Senator Stuart Symington and a brash young Irish-Catholic senator from Massachusetts, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

My dad did me an immense favor by taking me with him to the convention in Los Angeles. On Monday of that week, former President Harry S Truman, an avid Symington supporter, blew into town and held a news conference at the train station saying that, at 41. Kennedy was simply too young to be president. Kennedy’s camp announced the Massachusetts senator would not only answer the charge, but answer it a meeting of the Missouri delegation’s caucus the following day. My dad took me to that caucus and I heard Kennedy deliver a speech in which he outlined all the things that could not have happened in our history had individuals 41 or under be denied positions of responsibility. He ended his list with these words "…and Columbus could not have discovered America." My dad turned to me at that moment and said "There’s your next president."

I was not in Washington when Kennedy delivered his inaugural address — still the greatest in history (Proof: I doubt if anyone can quote a line from any other inaugural address, but millions who weren’t even born when Kennedy was elected knows "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.") But I’ll never forget how it electrified and energized me when I saw it on a black and white TV in Austin, Texas.

When I saw this superb re-interpretation of this great speech, prepared by the Harvard Kennedy School, it saddens me more than it electrifies or energizes. Perhaps that’s because the Kennedy presidency lasted only around 1,000 days and ended so tragically. If watching this doesn’t bring a lump to your throat or a tear to your eye, then you’re just too young. But you can still appreciate its majesty and purity of thought.

Good night, Coach

Former University of Texas football coach Darrell K. Royal, 88, died this morning after a short but ultimately debilitating fight with Alzheimer’s. The majority of those who knew Royal knew of him as Texas’ coach from 1957 to 1976, who won three national championships, 11 Southwest Conference championships and 167 football games. He was known as the coach who introduced the flip-flop offense in the early 1960s and somewhat later and far more famously the Wishbone Offense which dominated the college game from the late 1960s to the early 1980s.

But I got to know him as a confidant during my years at UT and immediately after at United Press International.

I dropped out of college for five years in the mid-1960s and embarked on a global odyssey that took me to, among other places, South Vietnam where I became a war correspondent for a number of U.S. newspapers. Now this was back before the North Vietnamese had entered the fray and the conflict was strictly between the South Vietnamese government that had been installed by the United States and the Viet Cong rebels. It was easy to see right from the beginning which side would emerge victorious and, as a result, I became an avid opponent of U.S. military involvement in the country.

I brought that opposition with me when I returned to the United States and finally to the University of Texas, where, as a journalism major, I first resumed my position as a sports reporter for The Daily Texan, the university’s newspaper, and finally as the paper’s managing editor.

In that latter position I came under heavy pressure by my colleagues who also opposed American involvement in Vietnam to de-emphasize football coverage in the newspaper. I always had the main story on the University’s Saturday football game on the front page of the Sunday Texan. Their argument was football was trivial during times like these and that football coverage should be eliminated completely or at least reduced to a small story inside the paper.

My stance was simple and straight-forward: Any campus event that attracted 50,000 people (Memorial Stadium was a lot smaller back in those days) was a major news story and the front page was reserved for the day’s major news story.

After I graduated, however, and went to UPI my influence in that area disappeared. The views of the antiwar faction at the Texan obscured their news judgment.

UPI, in those days, had a coaches football poll. Each week, an invited group of college football coaches submitted their choices of the nation’s Top 25 college football teams. Every Sunday night during football season, Coach Royal would call the Dallas UPI office and give me his Top 25. And because he knew of me and my efforts while at UT, we would spend a lot of time talking about the current state of university journalism, which greatly saddened him. The coach only cared about how the team was covered in two publications, The Daily Texan and the Dallas Morning News, and so what was happening at the Texan was literally breaking his heart. Ivan Maisel, a sportswriter who formerly worked for the Morning News, crafted an excellent obituary of The Coach this morning.

Coach Royal was known for his folksy style ("We gonna dance with the one who brung us.") but what I will always remember Royal for was that he earned the respect of everyone he came in contact with.

After Aurora: Vigilante justice is not the answer

From the editorial pages of today’s New York Times:

The most appropriate response now to the shootings early Friday in Aurora, Colo., is also the simplest: sympathy for the victims, for the injured and for their families.

President Obama asked a crowd in Fort Myers, Fla., "to pause in a moment of silence for the victims of this terrible tragedy, for the people who knew them and loved them, for those who are still struggling to recover, and for all the victims of less publicized acts of violence that plague our communities every single day."

He returned to the White House and, like Mitt Romney, pulled his political ads off the air in Colorado.

Romney addressed the senseless violence at a previously scheduled campaign stop in New Hampshire.

"I stand before you today not as a man running for office but as a father and grandfather, a husband, an American," he said. "This is a time for each of us to look into our hearts and remember how much we love one another and how much we love and how much we care for our great country."

Both men struck absolutely the right note. The country needs a pause for reflection, to wait for more information and to take a break from this ugly political campaign. But as Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, a leader in the search for sensible answers about guns, said, we will need to do more than reflect.

"Maybe," the mayor said, "it’s time that the two people who want to be president of the United States stand up and tell us what they’re going to do about it."

Sadly, however, it seems unlikely that they will tell us what they are going to do about it, or that there will be a national dialogue about it, just as there was no national dialogue after Columbine or after Virginia Tech or after Jared Lee Loughner tried to assassinate then-Representative Gabrielle Giffords.

Politicians are far too fearful of the gun lobby to address gun violence, and, as a society, we keep getting stuck on a theoretical debate about the Second Amendment, which keeps us from taking practical measures that just might help avoid the all-too-frequent tragedies like the one in Aurora.

Whether you believe, as many perfectly reasonable people do, that the amendment gives each individual the right to bear arms, or whether you believe, as (I and) this editorial page has often argued, that it is society’s right to raising a militia, there is no excuse to ignore the out-of-control gun market.

The country needs laws that allow gun ownership, but laws that also control their sale and use in careful ways. Instead, we have been seeing a rash of "stand your ground" self-defense laws, other laws that recklessly encourage the carrying of concealed weapons and efforts to force every state to knuckle under to those laws. Assault rifles like one used by the killer in Colorado are too readily available, as are high-capacity ammunition clips.

What we do not need is more heedless rhetoric like we heard on Friday from Representative Louie Gohmert, the Texas Republican who drew a bizarre connection during a radio interview between the horror in Colorado and "ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs."

Gohmert added: "It does make me wonder, you know, with all those people in the theater, was there nobody that was carrying? That could have stopped this guy more quickly?"

That sort of call to vigilante justice is sadly too familiar, and it may be the single most dangerous idea in the debate over gun ownership.

©2012 New York Times

Things that make a fella damn proud

The day my son officially became a doctor with his beautiful daughter

My friend and I would like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving

One of those moments that makes you so proud you want to shout about it from the mountaintops

I called my son the other day and the call went right to voice mail which began: "This is Dr. Chance Oppel ..." I didn’t need to hear anything more.

For your listening and viewing pleasure

Let’s face it. Life isn’t always easy and sometimes there are no other alternatives but to just hang in there. Patty Griffin nails those feelings and more right here.

Why I love this day

After today, I can live peacefully for another 11 months without being subjected to Christmas music.

Pardon me while I boast

"From a wish to a star to a butterfly,

You take a try.

But then a bird

Sings a song you never heard."

The above is my granddaughter's first attempt at writing song lyrics. She just turned 5.

Good Night Ed

I did not know Ed Kuempel that well. In fact, I didn't even know he was a state legislator until I read that he had died this morning of a heart attack in Austin. Truth be told, the last time I saw Ed (the newspaper story referred to him as Edmund, but I always knew him as Ed) was a little more than 48 years ago.

It was during my first internship, during the summer between my sophomore and junior years of college. I was working for the Seguin Gazette, at the time a weekly newspaper in Seguin, known back then as the town 30 miles east of San Antonio where U.S. Highways 90 and 90A joined (they separated in Houston, depending on which way you traveled). My job at the Seguin Gazette was basically to cover and write about everything, except the editorials and the society columns. That meant city news, county news, the police beat and sports. That summer sports consisted of two semi-pro baseball teams based in Seguin, the Seguin White Sox and the SMI (for Seguin Steel Mills) Steelers. Kumpel, who had also pitched for Seguin'sTexas Lutheran College's baseball team, was the ace of the White Sox starting rotation, which meant he pitched almost every game since the two teams only played twice a week.

The University of Texas' baseball team, then coached by the legendary Bibb Falk, had just won another Southwest Conference championship that season and was heading up to Omaha to play in the College Wold Series. Between the end of the SWC season and the start of the series, Falk scheduled a couple of warmup games, one of which was with the White Sox in Seguin. I covered the game for the Gazette and since the field had nothing resembling a functioning press box, I sat behind the Texas bench, one of those chain-link enclosures you see on just about all municipal baseball fields even to this day.

Falk had a reputation for trying to unnerve opposing pitchers by talking to them constantly and he never let up on poor Ed throughout his stint on the mound. "He throws inside, he throws outside," Falk yelled to his batters. "His main pitch is his changeup." I distinctly remember one moment, when Kuempel was about halfway through his windup, Falk yelled "Hey, Kuempel! Can you open a beer can with that chin?" A hapless Kuempel collapsed in laughter right there on the mound. Even the umpire was laughing too hard to call a balk.

About half the teams in the league in which the White Sox and SMI played were based in San Antonio, so I often accompanied the team on road trips to the Alamo City. The team usually piled into four or five cars, each one belonging to and driven by a player, to make the trip. This league could not afford team buses. After one of these road contests it was decided that we would stop off at a neighborhood drive-in for dinner, which was going to be expensed by the team. We placed our order and waited. And waited. And waited. Finally Kuempel had had enough. He slammed his fist on the dashboard of the car he was riding in, jumped out of the card and screamed:

"Why you clowns can't fulfill a simple order of 37 hamburgers, 28 cheeseburgers, two double cheeseburgers, five with lettuce and tomato, 16 with pickles and mayonnaise, seven with mustard and lettuce ... 42 with French fries, 20 with onion rings ... 6 plain Cokes, 4 vanilla Cokes, 8 cherry Cokes, 7 chocolates shakes .... is beyond me."

This time it was the turn of the rest of us to roll around laughing out loud.

I did not know you well, Ed Kuempel, but the time I did know you were some of my best times.

And we'll root, root, root for the home team

I was born and spent most of my early childhood in New York City, back when the city had three baseball teams (as well as three pro football teams, but no one paid any attention to them). The city was divided into specific geographic areas. Mine was where you loved the Yankees, tolerated the Giants and hated the Dodgers. My family, especially my dad, took that seriously.

I don't know how he did it -- I was way too young to ask at the time and he died before I could find out later -- but my dad got to know a number of the Yankees personally. The Yankee lineup during this time consisted, for the most part, of Johnny Mize at first, Billy Martin at second, Phil Rizutto at short, Bobby Brown at third, Gene Woodling in left, Joe DiMaggio in center and either Tommy Henrich or Hank Bauer in right. A rookie named Yogi Berra was the new Yankees' catcher and the starting rotation consisted of Allie Reynolds, Vic Raschi and Eddie Lopat.

My dad was in the construction business and I remember parties at our Lower East Side apartment that were attended mostly by New York Yankee players and gangsters I later saw portrayed as much younger thugs on the television program "The Untouchables." One of the wildest of those parties was one thrown in honor of my little brother's christening. My mom and dad worried about either my safety or my ability to get some sleep (possibly both) in that environment and convinced our neighbors down the hall to let me spend the night there. Those neighbors were the Dunphys. That name might not mean anything today, but back then Don Dunphy was considered "the voice of boxing," the man who did the radio and later the television punch-by-punch announcing for the matches emanating from Madison Square Garden as well as the heavyweight championship fights wherever they occurred. This was also back in the day when the milkman delivered his product right to your front door. Anyway, on this particular evening I was racing down the hall to the Dunphy's apartment and slipped on a piece of glass from a broken milk bottle and fell into the bulk of the shattered bottle. I was bleeding profusely, and Don Dunphy, on his way to the job at MSG, opened the door of his apartment, saw me and wrapped his tuxedo jacket (he always wore a tuxedo to announce the fights) to fashion a tourniquet before the ambulance came to take me to the hospital. For many years after we left the city, I received a holiday card annually from Don Dunphy that included the words "You still owe me a tuxedo."

Back then there were eight American League teams and eight in the National League and the winner of each played in the World Series. There was no wild cards or playoff games. In the American League, the pennant race consisted of the Yankees against the Ted Williams-led Boston Red Sox. The two teams would be neck- and-neck until around Labor Day when the Yanks would sweep a series from the Sox and then win going away. I felt like Yankee Stadium was my second home. My dad worked in Rockefeller Center and commuted by subway. Just about every night I would wait at the end of the block where we lived for my dad to come home from work and on most of those nights when the Yanks were at home we would head for the Bronx after he changed out of his dress suit. This was back when the left and right field walls at Yankee Stadium were only three-feet high and the monuments were in the field of play.

And once each season we would make a road trip to a series in Boston, always staying at the same hotel as the Yankees. This hotel had a restaurant with a bar at one end, a circular bar with seats all around the perimeter. Once my dad and I were having dinner in the hotel restaurant and we spotted Martin, Rizzuto and Bauer at the bar. About 15 minutes after we sat down, Yankee manager Casey Stengel walked in along with Frank Crossetti and other coaches. He saw the players at the bar and firmly told them that sitting in a bar in public on the road that early in the evening violated team rules. The players seemed to oblige Stengel. However, when the manager turned to go to his dinner table, the players simply moved around to the far side of the bar, figuring Stengel couldn't seem them there, since this pillar in the middle of the bar obscured the view of the far side. What they players didn't realize, however, was that the bar was slowly revolving. As the trio came back into Stengel's line of sight, the Yankee manager jumped from his table, stormed over to the bar and unleashed a torrent of words plenty loud enough for me, my dad and everyone else in the restaurant to hear, even if we didn't understand them. (Stengel often spoke in an indecipherable language all his own that the New York media dubbed "Stengalese"). The players just looked at him dumbfounded and when the outburst ended, sheepishly left the bar.

We later moved to the San Francisco area, a couple of years before the Giants made a similar move. The local team then was the minor league San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League. The highlight of my dad's week was the televised "Game of the Week" (featuring play-by-play by Dizzy Dean). The GOTW featured the Yankees more often than not. Those telecasts would turn my dad into a nervous wreck. He would pace back and forth in front of the television, alternately praising a Yankee play and cursing a Stengel strategy move. Too often, however, the games would run long. It would be the bottom of the ninth, the score tied, runners on first and second, my dead hanging on every pitch and the local station would interrupt the telecast to begin the San Francisco Seals pre-game show. At that moment my dad would make Stengel in the bar seem like a piker. "What's going on?" he would scream. "Interrupting the New York Yankees for some bush league's pre-game show???" He would then vow retaliation like firebombing the station and, in some cases, the entire city.

I moved to Dallas in 1968 to take a position with the wire service United Press International and when the Washington Senators relocated here as the Texas Rangers two years later, I was assigned to cover most of their home games. UPI's Southwest Division sports editor at the time worked from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m., so any sporting event that occurred after 3 (which, of course, was most of them) was covered by another staffer, most of them by the great Mike Rabun. For some reason, however, I got the bulk of the Ranger games. One year the Rangers opened their season at home against the Yankees. Not only that, the Rangers had a new manager, former Yankee Billy Martin. For that reason, UPI's national sports desk in New York wanted to make sure I obtained a number of quotes from Martin after the game. So after I filed my story and the box score, I trotted from the press box to the Rangers clubhouse, walked up to Billy Martin and introduced myself: "I'm Pete Oppel of UPI." Martin stared at me. "Oppel ... Oppel," he said. "You're dad isn't Bill Oppel, is it?" I said that it was, but that my dad had died eight years earlier. He grabbed a clubhouse phone and called what I later learned was the Yankees broadcast booth and said "Hey, guys. I've got Bill Oppel's son down here." That night I wound up in a room at the Inn of Six Flags, which used to be located across the Turnpike from Arlington Stadium, playing poker with Billy Martin, Phil Rizzuto, Yogi Berra and Don Drysdale, simply because I was my dad's son.

For the past week I have been dreading a matchup of my beloved Yankees against the Texas Rangers in the ALCS. I actually got caught up in the Rangers this year -- in the Josh Hamilton saga, his run for the MVP trophy, the acquisition of Cliff Lee, the sale of the club to Nolan Ryan et al. Who was I going to root for? I didn't know. I emotionally could not make a choice.

Tonight my son decided he wanted to cook out on the grill in the back yard and then watch the opening game of the series. My grill rack was rusty so I went to a neighborhood store to get a replacement. The store had all kinds of Rangers and Yankees baseball paraphernalia and without even thinking I decided to buy three shirts, one for me, one my son and one for my granddaughter. Her's sports Michael Young's number, my son has Ian Kinsler's last name and number on the back. And mine? Mine is also fire engine red, with the name Lee and the number 33 on the back.

Stay cool, dad.

Recalling Inger Stevens

I just this moment finished watching a 1957 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents featuring actress Inger Stevens and was struck once again by her beauty and her unexplained death. It was ruled a suicide, but the reason why she took her own life has never been fully explained to my satisfaction. All that has been said was that she was found by her housekeeper lying face down on her kitchen floor on the morning of April 30, 1970. A medical examiner said she overdosed on alcohol mixed with something called Tedral, commonly prescribed to those suffering from asthma, emphysema and bronchitis to help with their breathing.

She was only 23 when she made the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode I watched and only 35 when she died. Her biggest claim to fame would come in the mid-60s when in the television series, The Farmers Daughter, a show for which she won a Golden Globe and an Emmy nomination, but one which escaped my attention because I was living in various spots in Europe at that time. Upon my return to the United States, I was captivated by her as Richard Widmark’s wife in the gritty police film Madigan which also starred Henry Fonda.

I have always believed the medical examiner rushed to judgment simply because Stevens tried to commit suicide once before, in 1959, following a failed romance with Bing Crosby. However, according to one source, she came out of that episode “a stronger, wiser person,” who characterized that suicide attempt as one of “the stupidest things I have ever done.”

Consider the fact that not one member of her family nor any of her friends believe she killed herself. Of course, that alone could be labeled “denial” by those closest to her. But also consider she had just signed a contract to star in another television series produced by Aaron Spelling, that she had just purchased clothes she wanted to wear on the program and that she had committed to appearing at an MGM auction three days after her body was discovered.

Anyway, just some thoughts on Inger Stevens, a beautiful, talented and tragic actress.

On Doris Day and other old bags

Ever have strange thoughts while driving down the highway late at night -- thoughts other than "I need to wash my hands so badly I'm about to burst" or "I hope I have enough gas to make it home"? As for me I often think about off-the-wall, disconnected things.

Take tonight, for instance. Driving south on U.S. 75, out there where the speed limit is 65 miles an hour, I started wondering "Whaddya think Doris Day is doing right now?". Probably not much, I reckoned, especially since she's 88 years old right now. Truthfully, I was never a big Doris Day fan, although I will admit to liking her two big comedies with Rock Hudson, Pillow Talk and Lover Come Back. I would have liked Alfred Hitchcock's remake of his own The Man Who Knew Too Much a lot better without her song Whatever Will Be, Will Be, but I know I'm in the minority because that single sold a gazillion copies back in 1956. The one thing I am really grateful to Doris Day for was her turning down the role of Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate. Can you really see her parading nude in front of Dustin Hoffman?

But, still, Doris Day is the all-time female box-office champ. That's right. No woman -- not even Angelina Jolie -- has drawn more people into movie theaters than Doris Day. Yet, given that fact, no one ever -- ever -- talks about Doris Day anymore. So, I was thinking:  What's become of Doris Day? I was wondering what she was doing that very minute I was driving south on 75 and sincerely hoping, by golly, she was doing OK.

Another thing I thought about was anyone who thinks they don't build American cars better today than they used to has forgotten all about the car water bag (pictured here, for those either to young to remember them or those who never drove between Phoenix and Los Angeles/San Diego back in the day). Before you dared to cross the Southern California desert back then, you would stop to get one of those contraptions filled with water and drape it over the hood ornament of the car. Those who didn't ran the risk of an overheated radiator hundreds of miles from the nearest gas station and no AAA rescue service. These days, superior engineering has eliminated the need for the car water bag. How do I know? Because cars don't come with hood ornaments any longer.

How weird is this?

I went to bed around 2 this morning with my mind wrapped around an image of the great love of my life silhouetted against an open doorway. I awoke about 90 minutes later with a minor cramp in my right leg and wondering what had become of Chris Evert. After walking off the cramp and drinking copious amounts of ice water, I went back to sleep and had a dream in which I was the only passenger on a DART bus that was driven by a non-DART employee (who was a stranger to me) who had decided it would be a great idea to spend some time at the lake in Aubrey, Texas (I'm not exactly sure where Aubrey is or whether it even has a lake). When the bus stopped for a red light, the driver decided to get out momentarily. I gazed out the window and spotted former Dallas City Council member Ed Oakley sitting rather forlornly on a park bench. I waved but he simply stared back with a glazed look in his eyes. I said to myself that I guess he didn't recognize me. When the light turned green, the bus started moving again even though the driver hadn't returned. I decided it might be a good idea to slip behind the wheel and when the bus came to the next major intersection I managed to turn it around in a parking lot. I began driving the bus back to the intersection where the driver had gotten off and as I approached it, I saw the driver waiting by the side of the road. That was the end of the dream.

OK, you Freudians out there, explain all that to me.

Good night, my dear, dear friend

Give me a moment here, I've just lost a close, dear friend. I know the standard reaction is "Get over it, it's only a dog." And, in time, I will get over it. But, please, give me a moment.

I know every single person who owns and loves a dog or a pet of any kind thinks theirs is the best and the smartest the world has ever known. But Lily really belonged in that argument and I give 75 percent of the credit for that to my son, Chance, who raised Lily from a 3-month-old pup and the other 25 percent to the fact that Lily was truly a unique animal.

I only got to know Lily really well during the last four years she, my son and his daughter moved in with me while my son has been in medical school. But in those four years I came to regard her as my dog. Sorry, Chance.

I took her out to play ball the first thing every morning when I woke up and always took her for a long walk the last thing I did at night. Sunday, while we were playing ball, she suddenly just keeled over, laying almost motionless in the field. I summoned Chance who carried her home. He looked her over, recorded her heartbeat and felt that she had experienced some form of a seizure. But last night she seemed her old self again. When I got home from work, she was anxious to go for her walk and during that walk she chased and treed a cat and played with another Golden Retriever.

She was very protective of my granddaughter, following her everywhere she went. At night, she would sleep in the hall between our three bedrooms until Chance and Grace got up to go to their respective schools. Then Lily would come into my room. The picture you see here is of a toddler Grace out walking with Lily.

She also adored My Hero's two dogs. She taught the oldest of her two dogs how to walk without a leash during a weekend that dog, Rufus, stayed with me while My Hero was out of town. They two of them had a strange relationship. They never played together, but were inseparable when they were together. However, Lily loved to play with the younger of My Hero's two dogs. Once when Lily and I were out at a dog park near the Meadows Foundation, Lily spotted My Hero's car arriving and she took off like a shot to greet her and her pets. (One of the reasons she is My Hero is because she took time out from her hectic schedule and dealing with an even more important emergency to come to my side just to sit for a while.)

When Chance was still living in Austin, he and I decided to take a tip to Europe and I think it was the very first time he and Lily had ever been separated for any length of time. The picture you see here was taken shortly after Chance returned. Lily was willing to sleep a little, but she would know if Chance was going to try to leave again.

Chance has told me that once he graduates from med school, he wants to set up practice somewhere in the Texas Hill Country and I have been dreading the day he, Grace and Lily would leave. So when the opportunity came up to adopt another Golden, I lept at the opportunity. But this dog was no Lily. For one thing it chewed up and destroyed everything in its path. It was like Lily on speed and at one point Chance sensed my frustration and disappointment. "You've got to remember," he told me. "Lily is an exceptional dog. You're not ever going to find another Lily."

This morning I had an early doctor's appointment. When the alarm went off, Lily was laying by the side of my bed as usual. I took her outside briefly, petted her, gave her some fresh water and then went to Medical City. When I got home, I was surprised that Lily was not at the door to greet me like she usually was. I called. There was no response. Then I went upstairs and found her in my bedroom. I saw immediately that she has passed. I petted her, kissed her, put a quilt over her and cried. Then I called Chance.

None of this does justice to Lily and how much she meant to this family and my extended family. But it's all I've got right now.

Lily was family.

Right now, Chance wants to be alone with her, to bury her by himself. And I respect that. He promises to call so I can join him just so I'll know where her final resting place is. I guess I'm a sentimental old slob, because right now, I can't stop the tears from falling. So, please, give me a moment here.

PTI

The last time there was this much of a break between posts it was due to my health. This time it was the health of my faithful computer, which required a heart transplant and then some recovery time. I am back in operation (pun intended) now, however, so watch it!

Random Thoughts

I must have been one of the last to receive the bulletin regarding the NFL's Almost Sudden Death format during playoff games that means that if a team wins the coin toss at the start of sudden death and scores a field goal on its first possession, sudden death begins after that field goal is kicked. I have absolutely no problems with this, but I wonder why it's just being installed for playoff games and not all contests.

I have already said I don't like the Dallas Mavericks' playoff prospects against either Denver or Utah in which those two teams have the home-court advantage. Now I'll add Portland to that list, regardless of where the games are played. A couple of years ago it was Golden State that had the Mavs' number. This year the Trailblazers do.

Sandra Bullock is behaving with a lot of class these days.

I will never -- ever -- forgive John McCain for elevating Sarah Palin from obscurity.

Can anyone see a team other than Kentucky winning the men's NCAA basketball championship?

If the St. Louis Rams draft Oklahoma's Sam Bradford with the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft, it won't be long before the Rams have the best quarterback of any team in the NFC West.

Valentine's Day

Here's wishing everyone -- especially my son, my granddaughter, My Hero and her family -- a special Valentine's Day, regardless of what day you celebrate it (a day spent with loved ones is always a day to be cherished). I also hope you remember some of the great traditions that make this day a special one.